Nègres blancs d’Amérique

I grew up watching two social movements.  As a child I watched the protesters in the USA – everything was happening there!  Protesting Vietnam! Women’s liberation and the ERA!. But the biggest change on the canvas was the Civil Rights movement and this new equality between the races (that takes some explaining to a Canadian kid – how long ago was that Civil War? how long ago was slavery? there really was slavery?).  News photos of segregated fountains and bathrooms, and George Wallace’s Alabama.  Sore losers from a historic war.

At home, Québec was changing in profound ways as well.  It was called the Quiet Revolution (la révolution tranquille), which is why you never heard of it.  The book “Nègres blancs d’Amérique” is written by Pierre Vallières, a FLQ member. “Speak white” is a phrase from that era.